From Sugar to Splenda: A Personal and Scientific Journey of a Carbohydrate Chemist and Expert

237 Pages·2012·1.76 MB·English

From Sugar to Splenda
.
Bert Fraser-Reid
From Sugar to Splenda
A Personal and Scientific Journey
of a Carbohydrate Chemist
and Expert Witness
Prof. Dr. Bert Fraser-Reid
595 Weathersfield Road
Fearrington
Pittsboro, North Carolina 27312-8717
USA
Dedication
I dedicate this book to the two women who, in different ways, have made it
possible.
Joyce, the surviving of five siblings, has been a surrogate mother, ever since our
real mother died when I was 9 months old, and she a preteen of 12 years. She
continues to bless me with love and her never—failing concern about my health and
well-being. Thanks to her, I cannot lament that I did not know my mother, nor a
mother’s love.
Lillian, my wife of 48 years, has “brought me up” along with daughter, Andrea,
and son Terry. Sometimes I think she had an easier time with them. She has been a
sounding-board for my bright ideas – such as writing this book. Her patience, love
and support have been severely stretched during the last three years – but still they
remain unbroken. The blessing of our true family begins with her, and envelopes
our wonderful children and grand children.
Pittsboro, NC, USA Bertram Fraser-Reid
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Preface
The patent infringement litigation that is summarized in Chapters 7 – 17, is the
impetus that prompted me to write this book. Actually, the impetus was multiface-
ted; but all facets converged to bring about my presence as an expert witness, in the
Court of the United States International Trade Commission.
As a native Jamaican, the history, ramifications, politics, manufacture, econom-
ics etc. of “sugar” were absorbed subliminally, and this was apparent as I
approached Chapter 1. But it was at Canada’s Queen’s University that I realized,
among other things, that sugar was actually not singular, but plural. And it was there
that, by pure chance in 1958, I happened to be around, when the early experiments
that led “from Sugar to Splenda” were underway. These biographical issues are
abstracted in Chapters 2 and 3, including my unlikely journey from a Jamaican
High School, where neither chemistry nor physics was taught, to being an expert
witness about chemistry in a trial with huge international and commercial
consequences.
The middle of the book, chapters 4 – 7, contains the “meat and potatoes”,
because the allegedly infringed patents were all about chemistry – 100%. However,
that percentage was diminished markedly at the hands of brilliant lawyers who
refused to accept the teaching of brilliant chemists.
I have therefore tried to give the readers a user-friendly presentation of the
chemistry at issue in Chapter 4. Those wishing less user-friendly treatments of the
chemistry should see Appendices A, B, C, D and E.
2200 pages of the Public Court Transcript of the trial have been whittled down to
Chapters 8 – 17.
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Introduction
I learned that Tate & Lyle had lost the patent infringement claim on September
22nd 2008 via an e-mail from attorney Gary Hnath, who was then with the
Washington law firm Bingham McCutchen. At the time I was on vacation with
my wife and sister on the picturesque extremities of Canada’s Gaspe´ Peninsula.
I had been an expert witness for one of the Respondents in the litigation, had
enjoyed the experience, and had found it immensely educational – and not only
about the law.
The patent infringement was concerned with the artificial sweetener SPLENDA.
The sweet agent in this sweetener is called sucralose – not to be confused with
sucrose. In fact it is 600 times sweeter than sucrose (table sugar) from which it is
manufactured by controlled chlorination. Because of its intense sweetness, sucra-
lose is present to only 1% in SPLENDA, the other 99% being a neutral “filler”.
Unlike sucrose (table sugar), sucralose is not broken down in the body. It is there-
fore non-caloric, cannot produce energy, and most importantly cannot be stored as
fat. It is also unaffected by moderate heating and hence, unlike most artificial
sweeteners, can be used in cooking; and unlike others, it has no aftertaste.
These properties have given SPLENDA a favoured status among high-intensity
sweeteners, encouraging the advertisement that SPLENDA is “made from sugar,
so it tastes like sugar”, to which manufacturers of another artificial sweetener,
Equal, took exception. The resulting trial was discussed, in an article entitled
Legally Sweet by chemistry Nobel Laureate Roald Hoffmann in American Scientist
volume 95, 2007. An Editor’s note about the article states that the “trial ended in a
settlement (terms not disclosed)------.”
My involvement with the patent infringement case began with the arrival of an
e-mail on April 30, 2007. Ed Pardon, a lawyer from Madison, Wisconsin, was
interested in engaging my services. I had been recommended to him by William
Roush. Bill, a generation younger than me, is an eminent organic chemist whom
I have known since his days as a Harvard Ph.D. student studying with R.B.
Woodward, the most celebrated organic chemist of our age. Bill is now executive
director of Medicinal Chemistry at Scripps Institute (Florida), and also is an
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